Sling Shot Around the Sun...

As I stand on the threshold of the earth's  completion of yet another orbit around the sun, it is a time of natural pause and potent opportunity, a time for looking backward and forward.  Each of us engages in individual and collective rituals as 

Ready or not- a new year.  

2013 was a year of planting seeds, careful nurturing and germination of important milestones. I envision 2014 as a year of great growth and MORE momentum forward. As we know, there  is always more. Every year I begin this ritualistic letter with the same complaint. Life is NON-STOP ALL THE TIME. Then I remember that we are on a slingshot around the sun, orbiting approximately 67,000 miles per hour.  NOTHING in the universe is stopping. It's crunch time, all the time.  Buckle up!  

2013: Seed Planting and Cultivation:  

• In late 2012, we opened a small studio and office location in Los Angeles and took great strides forward in establishing a yoga school and a home base for our operations. 

• By mid 2013, with sold-out programs, we outgrew our small yoga space.   

• In June 2013 we took a giant leap forward and secured a much larger space across the street.  We went from a 400 square foot yoga studio with a 29 mat capacity to an additional 3600 square foot space that holds 120. We kept the small studio too!   

• Throughout the year we rebuilt our Website, and this past fall, we launched www.yogamaze.net. Among new features is a listing of YOGAMAZÉ graduates and a robust Online Store.  
  

• We successfully completed our first "home based" 200 hour YTT and 500 hour YTT classes and successfully graduated two groups of skilled, articulate, tightly bonded students.  

• We devised plans: from online classes, online courses, Noah's travel schedule, 200 & 500 hour YTTs, to hatching ideas about certification, apprenticeship and conceived plans for "Emissary" programming.   

• Noah got several new clipboards and dry erase markers and even a fancy projector.  

• Noah reached deep into his background of Experiential & Adventure Education to create a new world of facilitation and leadership teaching models for yoga teachers.  

• In 2013 Noah authored
  and facilitated 10 online courses.  It turns out our students love learning online and a whopping 90% of them returned for another course. We are thrilled to be cultivating such a wonderful and potent worldwide learning community.    

• Noah completed his 5th year on YogaGlo's faculty and is honored and excited to be part of the Glo's growing team of quality teachers.      

• We oversaw YOGAMAZÉ Emissary, Ursula Rodriguez, as she translated and offered YOGAMAZÉ's first online course in a foreign language. In September of 2013, Fundamentals 2.0 was taught in Spanish.  

• Noah got a blue yoga tank top, and proceeded to teach in blue on 3 different occasions. 
   

• Noah's fan-base on Facebook surpassed 45,000-with an average weekly reach of more than 1/4 million peeps--oh my! 

• OH! And we discovered that we had grown a style of yoga: YOGAMAZÉ.

2014:  Growth and Expansion:

• We will begin the year with a weekend of exploration and advanced practice, as sri devi Sianna Sherman and I lead an advanced asana intensive entitled Alchemize Your Year.  

• Over the year, Noah will mentor a group of twenty 500 hour graduates through YOGAMAZÉ Certification and a year long Apprenticeship process.  Many of these Apprentices have or will become YOGAMAZÉ Emissaries. What does this mean? Check it out here.  We are especially proud of this team, who are in various stages of becoming certified in the YOGAMAZÉ method. Their names are on the right hand side of this newsletter just below this section, with links to learn more about them.Each of these teachers is highly skilled, talented and qualified. They comprise some of the best human beings we know. We are so proud to be on a journey in their company.    

• Arguably our greatest accomplishment will begin in February 2014, when our brave and incredible YOGAMAZÉ Emissary, Sarah Bohairy, commences a 200 hour yoga teacher training, under our guidance, which she will offer to women in Saudi Arabia. We expect not one, not two, but three trainings to take place in Saudi Arabia over the course of the next year. The idea that we might influence women's lives for the better in such a real and immediate way is palpably powerful. It gives us "lomaharshana" (which translates as happy hair)...  

• We hope to help initiate a worldwide shift in the notion of "yoga as an elite practice." Our research suggests that the majority of yoga in the US and throughout the world is taught in English. In 2014, we aim to initiate a shifting in this paradigm. Our globe's dominant languages are Mandarin and Spanish. So why the exclusivity? In Los Angeles 45% of the population speaks Spanish, but it's oddly impossible to find a yoga class taught in Spanish.   

• We have scheduled our first 200 hour yoga teacher training to be taught in 2014 in Spanish here in Los Angeles. The program will be co-taught by Noah and YOGAMAZÉ Emissary, Ursula Rodriguez. We anticipate offering this at a highly discounted rate to  local Spanish speaking individuals. We intend to initiate a grassroots effort to bring Spanish yoga classes to community centers and other areas where we expect yoga to thrive. Then sky is the limit. Expect Los  Angeles to have a Spanish speaking yoga culture soon.   

• Noah plans on painting an entire wall of the studio with white board paint so that he can use his new dry erase markers  with wild abandon.  

• In 2014, YOGAMAZÉ Emissaries will lead 200 hour yoga teacher trainings in locations around the world, including in North America, Central and South America, SE Asia, and the Middle East. 

• Our next LA 500 hour YTT is already underway with great momentum, a brilliant faculty, and an amazingly talented and committed group of yoga teachers from around the world.  

• Our YOGAMAZÉ 200 YTT (taught by Noah at YOGAMAZÉ in Los Angeles) is open for enrollment and launches in February. The curriculum is new and potent. Join us!  

• Our 2014 LA programs and Online Courses will have increased levels of support, with the assistance and special skills of Apprentices and Teacher Assistants.  We will maximize learning for each participant; and YOU WILL LEARN MORE.  

• Noah is currently developing curriculum for the 2014 schedule of Online Courses. In January, we begin the year with an online course about Vinyasa Sequencing and Practice.  Noah has been exploring a unique approach to Vinyasa curriculum and we are very excited about this new and different series.  

• In 2014, we will transition our online learning platform to a more integrated educationally based "university style" model, and bring the level of our technology up to the level of our content. You will be able to join us via mobile devices (iPads, tablets, etc.  YAY!).  Audio participation will also be an option.   

• We are working on several eBook projects-with more ideas than we have time for.  

• 2014 Online Courses will be offered in Spanish, (and possibly) French, Chinese, Italian, and Bahasa Indonesian.    
• Noah plans on teaching while wearing blue at least twice in the coming year.  

• We are working on a range of product ideas.  For example we hope to work with our environmentally conscious friends at Kharma Khare in 2014 to develop and distribute a co-branded yoga mat.  

• Phew.  Is that it?

As I dig deeply into my Adventure Education background, pull out my climbing ropes  for group initiatives, dust off my Outward Bound Instructor Manuals and other resources, I am re-opening doors and stepping up my skills/practices in the categories of communication, feedback, conflict resolution, facilitation, leadership, and experiential education.  

Householder life continues to be a powerful testing ground. Tracy and I are readily working with our curricular material-updating and practicing our communication skills.  I cannot think of a better partner in this-we live together, co-parent together, work together.Practice opportunities are 24/7.  Not easy, but necessary. Not quick, but potent.  Sometimes irritating, always growth provoking. What continues to amaze is the boundlessness of love and intimacy. 

This year, our sweet Madeleine hit some severe turbulence, called anxiety.  When your child is suffering, you are suffering; I'm sure many of you can relate. Tracy rearranged her schedule to be more consistently present at home, and began working the night shift to make up for the lost work time. We sought counsel with other parents, are have worked with teachers and administrators at her school. We have sought to arm ourselves with education to be better parents. We have learned a ton. I am happy to report that we turned the corner on this turbulence, and are once again flying clearer skies with our luminous angel, as we watch her blossom into a more radiant and intelligent child every day. See her fun Koala Bear Yoga videos. Madeleine is a small person with a big personality!  

Koala Bear Yoga With Madeleine: Sun Salutations

Oliver is the cover child on a recently published book about the early childhood philosophy that Tracy and I adopted, called RIE (Resources for Infant Educarers).  Tracy sits on the Board of Directors of this not for profit infant and child development organization, and our lives have been moved and changed by its principals. I highly recommend the book, even if it's just for the cover. 

Oliver is a pure ray of sunshine in our lives.   

If I could bottle his welcome ("Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" smile-run--hug) when I walk in the door, it would forever bring a smile to my heart, tears to my eyes and be a light in whatever darkness I'm in. Love makes all this hard work worthwhile. Love, is one of very few things worth paying retail for. 

All in all, it is coming together pretty well.  

Our objective is clear (perhaps a bit loony, but nevertheless...). We seek to improve the quality of yoga education worldwide, and to raise teaching and practice standards and experiences everywhere. 

Because we are growing so fast, we are constantly reminded of the need for  "our container," and reminded of the importance of making certain choices and not others. (As my dear teacher says, "say YES to few things and NO to the rest") We are actively resisting the strong urge to explode in every direction (and also to implode) in favor of forging paths and grooves that are meaningful, and directly related to our immediate goals and initiatives. 

What we described in this newsletter last year as our "third child" has grown into quite a beast. Radical expansion is happening so quickly that we find ourselves facing intense daily challenges in the outer material world. Our desire to grow matches and exceeds our actual growth, and that leaves us on a bit of a crazy treadmill. It's a good problem to have-but nonetheless, Tracy and I are totally exhausted by the seemingly ever-growing need to "feed the beast."  We are excited, proud, overwhelmed and STUNNED by the demand for our products and services in the yoga market. It's an honor, and, to be truthful, a bit of a burden, to navigate all of this. Lurking in shadowy corners are fears of failure, narcissism and isolation- even as we remind ourselves that this light shines exceedingly brightly.

As our style and curriculum(s) grow and evolve, I become more deeply committed to training yoga teachers to be educators of great skill and capacity. Now, with so many new programs and offerings underway, we are well into the process of rebirth in our next generation of existence.  Having recently immersed myself in the study of group dynamics, communication and facilitation, I have regained access to a lens through which I am able to measure my own progress as a leader, and our progress as an organization.  

I read an article in the Harvard Business Review recently, which stated:

 "An organization's success today depends on such a variety of talents and skills that no one leader could possibly be gifted in simultaneously. There are technological issues, global issues, financial issues, human resource issues, leadership issues, employee issues, legal issues, and more. A leader who is self-aware enough to know that he or she is not adept at everything is one who has taken the first step toward being a great leader."

I am definitely not adept at everything. Rather, I am lucky to be surrounded by the greatest of company.  In 2014, I am joined by a canvas of fresh and familiar faces, whom I expect many of you will grow to know and love, as our YOGAMAZÉ community expands. Lao Tzu posits: "A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say "we did it ourselves."

And though this "slingshot around the sun" is wild and non-stop, I am continually touched and influenced by supportive family members, colleagues

I am especially grateful for my  Tracy-crazy smart, hard working, soft as ghee (though she rarely shows it), and damn hot!  Tracy makes life beautiful.

2014.  Grow Your Wings. Do it together.  Do it yourself.